The Pisan territory
The Pisan territory
The municipality of Buti is surrounded by the Pisan mountains that reach a height of 1,000 meters above sea level, which create a barrier around the village and farmsteads, within which, in the valley, is the town center.
These mountains protect the valley from the brackish-laden winds from the sea and partly also from the cold winter tramontana winds, the micro-climate that is created favors the cultivation of olive trees, vines etc... Which produce high quality fruit.
In the late 1800s the large landowners of the municipality understood the quality of this valley and began to change the physiognomy of the mountain, from the plain up to an elevation of several hundred meters the land was transformed, the chestnut trees and other shrubs were partly removed and the slopes of the land gave way to terracing with dry stone walls, white roads and hydraluic works to collect rainwater. On these new tearraces were planted mainly olive trees of the frantoiane species, and some moraiole, leccino and mignole; and in some smaller areas in the lower belt and on the plains also vineyards with the typical spoiled chianti classico.
In the commune cooperatives of peasant laborers were created who by hand (with the few working tools at their disposal and trailing animals), with great artistic skill, worked for years on this work of transforming the land and gradually also became the wise farmers of such crops whose secrets they already knew from previous generations.
In the valley plain, in the various points useful for cultivation and close to streams were built many more oil mills to which at harvest time the various farmers brought the olives for pressing and division of shares with the landowner (a few farmers also owned the plot of land they worked).
Buti oil was taken to fairs and competitions where it won important awards.
Each peasant family received from the landowner a modest dwelling for themselves and their family, which was often large, a certain number of olive trees to cultivate, if possible also a small vineyard, a piece of woodland for firewood in the fireplace and for cooking, premises where they could raise some animals such as calves, dairy cows, chickens, rabbits etc.. Useful for the needs of the family or for a small subsistence trade.
Torretta
In the property of the buti family there are both the farmhouse and the manor house with an attached turret of a much older age, this tower with very thick walls and built with local stones and boulders served as a support for the house erected in the early 1900s as a residence, at certain times of the year, of the family owning the fund, normally in spring and autumn.
The tower was erected several centuries ago (the precise date we do not know, perhaps 1600, anyway in the period of the Pisan republic) as an observation point of the surrounding area in particolara the plain (sextum marsh) below and the roads in the nearby hills. It was garrisoned by a small garrison, perhaps 2 or 3 people at most, who sent signals with the reflections of the sun on mirrors to the other towers along the openings in the valley of buti, to continue along the Pisan mountains toward vicopisano (fortified to a design by brunelleschi), kicks, up other towers in the plain of pisa and into the city of pisa.
Only a few parts of this tower remain that are still original, sicuarely the entrance door (the most beautiful piece), the shape of some of the small windows, part of the little terrace on the second floor, and the baking oven in the kitchen on the ground floor. The rest, over the centuries, has been modified and readapted to the uses of a dwelling in which the members of the owner's family stayed with the servants and the chauffeur who followed them in the various movements between the various dwellings available to the family, the one in town at Pontedera and the one at the sea at Marina di Pisa or Tirrenia.